Hospitals and other healthcare facilities are seeking ways to increase medical staff's direct contact with patients by reducing unnecessary and inefficient tasks that occupy staff's time. Currently, nurses and other medical staff spend significant time retrieving medication and supplies from a centralized medication room, walking as much as five miles per day. Regulations require that medical staff only retrieve one patient's medication at a time, therefore requiring separate trips for each administration of medication. This retrieval of medication is inefficient and reduces available time for medical staff to care for patients and conduct other activities that provide greater value to the facility.
Studies suggest that nurses may spend less than 2 hours of a 12-hour shift in direct patient care. Increased interaction is shown to reduce patient injuries, infections and medication errors while increasing patient satisfaction. Additionally, medical reimbursement is increasingly tied to patient satisfaction and medical outcomes (i.e., avoidance of infections or errors). Therefore, it is important for healthcare facilities to find ways to increase engagement with patients to improve operational efficiencies and reduce errors.
Decentralization of medications (i.e., locating medications near nurses and patients instead of in a centralized medication room) represents a significant opportunity to improve efficiency for nurses and other medical staff. Some solutions for decentralizing medications exist but create other challenges for hospitals. For instance, medication carts can support medications near patient rooms, but the carts require maintenance (e.g., electrically charging the cart). Additionally, medication carts create clutter in the hallway, which is usually against hospitals' rules and regulations and can result in fines or create hazardous situations for patients and staff. Also, because the carts are moveable, their location may not always be known to medical staff.